AN INTRODUCTION TO

CULTURE

1.1 DEFINITION OF CULTURE

- There are no single definition of
culture.
- Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952)
identified over 160 different definitions
of culture.
- Culture as that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals,
law, custom and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a
member of society (Edward, 1871)
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Culture is a learned, shared,

compelling, interrelated set of symbols
whose meanings provide a set of
orientations for members of a society
(Terpstra & David, 1991)
Culture refers to the finer things in life,
such as the fine arts, literature and
philosophy (Ferraro, 2002)
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Culture is an acquired knowledge the

people use to interpret experience and
generate social behavior. This
knowledge forms values, creates
attitudes and influences behavior
(Hodgetts & Luthans, 2000)
Culture is the collective programming of
the mind which distinguishes the
members of one group or category of
people from another (Hofstede, 1991)
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Culture is everything that people have,

think and do as members of their society
(Ferraro, 2002)
Have something, some material object must be
present.
Think ideas, values, attitudes & beliefs
Do normative, expected, patterns of behavior
As members of their society shared
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1.2 IMPACT OF CULTURE ON

BUSINESS
As an international managers, they must work
on a number of different premises at any time.
In business, phenomena as authority,
bureaucracy, creativity, good fellowship,
verification and accountability are experienced
in different ways.
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People point to McDonald or Pepsi Cola as

examples of tastes, markets and hence cultures
becoming similar everywhere.
What is important here is not what they are and
where they are found physically but what they
mean to the people in each culture.

If business people want to gain

understanding of and allegiance to their
corporate goals, policies, products or
services wherever they are doing business
they must understand what those and other
aspects of management mean in different
cultures.
Not only use the term When in Rome, do as
the Romans do but When in Rome,
understand the behavior of the Romans and
thus become an even more complete
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1.3 LAYERS OF CULTURE

Outer Layer: Explicit products
- is the observable reality of the language,
food, buildings, houses, monuments,
agriculture, shrines, markets, fashions and
art.

Middle layer: Norms and values

Norms are the mutual sense a group has of
what is right and wrong.
Values determine the definition of good
and bad and therefore closely related to the
ideals shared by a group.
Norms give the feelings this is how I
normally should behave. Values give the
feelings of this is how I aspire or desire to
behave
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The core: Implicit

Groups of people organize themselves in such
a way that they increase the effectiveness of
their problem-solving processes.
Implicit layer is more on the nature of the
people or society itself.

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1.4 FOUR OPERATIONS OF

CULTURE
1) Culture classifies phenomenon into
discontinuous units
-How are things classified?
- Companies never classify difficult situations as
dilemmas or crises but always refer to
challenges, issues or opportunities.

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2) Culture codes the classified units

-What are proper codes for behavior?
- People learn not only to classify items but also
to behave towards them.
- Once an object is culturally identified, rules for
proper conduct can be defined.
3) Culture specific priorities among codes for
conduct
-What are priorities among codes for conduct?
-Priorities among codes are called values.
Priorities are necessary because different
situations different actions.
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4) Culture legitimizes and justifies all its

classifications, codes and priorities.
-How are all these cultural understandings
legitimized?
-Such companies attempt to enlist the
commitment of their staff. Other companies
rely on coercive techniques, rather than
legitimating, to enforce compliance to
expected behavior.

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1.5 FRONTSTAGE &

BACKSTAGE
Frontstage Culture
- Things that normal, standard, proper that
insider are willing to share with outsiders.
Backstage Culture
- Refers to knowledge that insiders define
standard ways of doing things that they are
not willing to share with outsiders.
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1.6 IMPORTANCE OF CROSS

CULTURAL MANAGEMENT
- Businesses are increasingly global and
mobile.
- Multinationals often open their plant,
branches far from HQ.
- Firms such as General electric, Matsushita,
Ericcsson, Nokia, Microsoft, Toshiba etc. a
worldwide multinationals.
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- Increase of Trading Blocks also one of the factors

which needs huge cooperation and tide relationship.
(TPPA, ASEAN, APEC, EU, etc)
- Managers have to deal with individuals from other
national cultures.
- Their skills such as interactive relationship, smart
partnership etc.
- A survey by Beamish and Calof (1989), human
resource and other executives ranked communication
skills as most important for positions of international
responsibility, followed by leadership skills,
interpersonal skills and adaptability/flexibility.
Functional /technical strengths and technological
literacy were rated lower.
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- Copeland & Griggs (1985) calculated that expatriate

failures were costing American companies USD 2
Billion a year.
- Cross-cultural management skills is a course whereby
students can improve their communication and
interaction with members of other cultures, which
always implies learning about their cultural systems.
- Effective cross-cultural management means working
with members of other culture, tolerating differences so
far as possible, and recognizing their priorities when
developing shared priorities.

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